


Haunting 101

by mexmaistrash



Series: Got to keep dancing when the lights go out [1]
Category: Beetlejuice - Perfect/Brown & King
Genre: Canon - Musical, Gen, Haunting, i am but a simple woman, i write scenes that are in-between scenes because i like to imagine scenarios ok, takes place after say my name
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-05
Updated: 2019-11-05
Packaged: 2021-01-23 09:40:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,146
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21318064
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mexmaistrash/pseuds/mexmaistrash
Summary: Lydia practices haunting with her new friends.
Relationships: Adam Maitland/Barbara Maitland
Series: Got to keep dancing when the lights go out [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1536802
Comments: 5
Kudos: 57





	Haunting 101

“Okay! This way, I think my dad said this was going to be my room”. 

Lydia lead the way to the second floor of the house, Adam and Barbara hurried after her, knowing exactly where she was taking them. The rooms, all now painted with a different color, were full of boxes and askew furniture. Lydia’s room used to be Adam’s old studio, with enough space for her bed, a vanity, a desk, and many boxes full of books. 

“Well, guess I never got to restoring my mahogany desk” Adam said as he locked the door behind them. Barbara gave his hand a squeeze and lead him to where Lydia was. She jumped on her bed, looking over both of them like a teacher studying new students. 

“So what was the deal with both of you?” Lydia asked. 

“What do you mean deal?” Adam asked, gesturing for her to elaborate. 

“Yeah dude, what did you guys do before...you know…”

“Falling into the basement?” Barbara said, averting her gaze. 

Lydia raised an eyebrow. “No way...how did that happen?” she flopped down on the bed, crossing her legs under her dress. 

“Guess we should have paid more attention to the old floorboards. They gave out pretty easily.” Adam explained, taking a seat on Lydia’s bed and turning around to grab at a stuffed bunny that was neatly placed on the pillow. 

Lydia immediately went stiff and made as if to reach out towards Adam. “Careful with him! He’s a bit old…” 

Barbara smiled and sat opposite Adam. “And who is this little fellow? Aren’t you a little old for stuffed animals? Not to be rude, of course”. She moved closer to look at the toy. An eye was almost gone and a leg was barely hanging from a stitch. 

Lydia wringed her hands together as the Maitlands handled the frail bunny. “He keeps me company. I guess old habits die hard...my mom sewed him when I was a baby.” She tried to hide the red in her cheeks by hanging her head, something Barbara found cute. 

“And does he have a name?” Barbara asked, taking the toy from Adam and handing it to Lydia. 

“Mr. Hippity-Hop the First. He had a whole other family, hand sewed too, but they did have an awful trip to the dump.” Lydia grabbed the bunny’s slim ears and made it ‘hop’ around them, giggling with the Maitlands. 

“You know, with some new stuffing and a couple of buttons Mr. Hop could be as good as new. I think I might have had some saved in the attic…” Adam pondered as he got up from the bed and almost made a run to start on yet another new restoration project. Luckily Barbara pulled him back by grabbing the back of his pants. 

“Planning to ruin a dinner now, restoration later, baby. You also have to ask Lydia for permission, you know?” Barbara smiled as Adam looked sheepish on running back to the attic. 

Lydia smirked at them with squinted eyes. “Too keen on DIYs, arent’cha? I guess he has seen better days. Besides, my stitches always look crooked, and I don’t want Mr. Hop to look like a low budget Frankenweenie rip-off.” She looked down at the bunny and turned it around in her hands. “Think you can patch him up after we scare some of the bourgeois?” 

Adam beamed. “Absolutely! These nimble fingers have always been good in stitching. He will be hopping in no time again!” 

Lydia seemed satisfied with the conversation and sat Mr. Hop next to her. She cleared her throat as to call attention to the subject at matter. “Ok you guys, so how good do you think you are at haunting, as of now.” 

Barbara made a so-and-so gesture with her hands and Adam just shook his head no. 

Lydia raised both eyebrows as high as she could. “Okay, so that’s a start.”

“Oh Lydia, it’s just...it probably has been months for some people but...it literally has just been days for us.” Barbara said, mentally counting just how many days, hell maybe even hours, she had known she was dead. 

“Time moves very different for the dead. We didn’t even know haunting our own house was going to be part of the afterlife.” Adam continued, looking around and momentarily remembering he should have taken everything out of the mahogany desk he was going to restore. 

Lydia felt a tad embarrassed now. “Sorry if I’m asking too much from you. But I really want to scare my dad and go back home as soon as I can, I kinda miss New York. The loud noises, the hot dog stands, the view from the apartment.”

“Lydia, trust me, there is nothing more I want than you leaving this house as soon as it humanly possible is—“

“Adam!”

“I’m not saying it in that way, I promise!” 

Barbara rolled her eyes and slapped Adam’s thigh, he winced slightly and almost forgot he probably did not even feel the hit. 

“Well...what can you think of that is easy for you to do? Have you guys tried anything?” Lydia asked, her mind reeling through a library of ghost movies she remembered to get ideas jotted down. “What about that demon guy? Why was he even with you in the first place?”

Adam and Barbara shrugged almost at the same time, it baffled Lydia how in sync the couple was. 

“Apparently, he had been living in our house for some time now. He literally was the first person...or rather thing...to greet us after we crawled out from the basement” Adam explained. Barbara flinched when Adam mentioned crawling their way up the hole, Lydia was getting too casual with the ghost thing and she didn’t want her to brush off on such things. 

“Don’t say his name, by the way. He could literally jump at us from any corner, and I rather not establish a friendship with him” Adam crossed his arms and shivered almost comically. “I never want to be frenched by a demon EVER again.”

Lydia seemed to explode like a bomb in her bed, she reeled her head back and caused the Maitlands such a fright that they might as well have come back to life. 

“Did he really do that to you! Maybe this place IS full of fun!” Lydia tried to settle down and then started laughing again after glancing up at Adam, who had his eyebrows knit together much like her father would after she had done something she wasn’t supposed to do. She knew that Adam had engaged in Dad Mode.

“ Hey, it’s not fun! It’s all fun and games until after he tells you he has herpes!”

Barbara choked back a laugh and covered her mouth with a hand, earning her an incredulous stare from Adam. She trembled with giggles as Lydia was getting ready to start on another fit of laughter. 

“Not. Cool.” 

Barbara’s eyes glistened with mischief, Adam barely knew what his wife was thinking when he felt words come out of his mouth, but not in his voice.

“I never want to be frenched by a demon EVER. AGAIN.” 

Adam opened and closed his mouth as the words were uttered out in Barbara’s voice. Lydia had stopped laughing and was watching in amazement as Barbara did it again.

“Demon Juice is just jealous that I stayed with my wife and did not run away with him. Enough! Barbara! How did you do that?” Adam stared in amazement at his wife, he couldn’t believe he was proud of literally anything she was doing, even making fun of him.

“I like it! It’s fun. It’s like mocking someone but you can make them say the things you normally mock them about.” She was beaming at her little trick. 

“Isn’t that like the possession thing that happened in the roof?” Lydia said, looking up and down at Adam, scanning any change if there was any. 

“What I understand about possession is making a person or object move a way you want it to, but I suppose throwing your voice counts, too” Barbara said, “I guess we can also practice that?”

“Hell yeah! Possessing bodies like in The Exorcist, or turning them into our slaves to do chores in the house! That’s what I’m talking about!” Lydia jumped up and down the bed again, even with her wild ideas and ways of saying things, Adam and Barbara wanted to help her. 

“Ok maybe not like in The Exorcist, but we can try out something. Anything you think we can use to practice?” Adam said as he got up from the bed and readied himself in the middle of the room. 

“I mean, you could maybe practice with me? I’m a living person! As far as I know” she smirked, hopping off from the bed.

“Oh no, no, no, no, no, young lady. We don’t want to mess up in the first try. I don’t even know what I can do” Adam pushed Lydia back until she sat on the bed again. She frowned and opened her mouth to complain when—

“Guess I’ll do as you say, Adam”. 

Both Lydia and Adam whipped their heads to see Barbara giggling again, she was enjoying it too much. Adam rested his hands on his hips as he stared at her in disbelief, she sometimes jumped too early into things. Lydia didn’t know if she should feel betrayed or giddy, she had to admit Barbara’s timing was impeccable. 

“Honey, I literally just said we didn’t know what could happen! We don’t need to worry about consequences for us, but for the living people we have to have some limits.” Adam then turned to talk to Lydia. “You feeling ok, kiddo?”

“Yeah, I mean...I wasn’t expecting it! But it’s not as if she was literally forcing me to move my mouth. It was like saying something automatically” she smiled over at Barbara “think you can do that with multiple people? Dad’s inviting a couple, so that makes at least four people.”

“Four people?! Don’t you think that’s—“ Adam almost finished his sentence but Barbara stood next to him and shushed him with a nab at his ribs. 

“I think I’ll do just fine, consider it done”. Barbara winked at Lydia and twined her arm with Adam’s, who was looking beyond incredulous at this point. 

“And then what? Make them say a couple of inappropriate things and what? It’s not as if people have not being saying inappropriate things lately.” Adam huffed out.

“Try the possession thing with me! It’s what mama always said, you can’t be good at it unless you practice!” Lydia walked up to him and threw her hands up to her sides, closing her eyes. “C’mon dude” Lydia didn’t see Adam scrunch up his nose “I’m daring you. If you want to be an elite haunting ghost, you have gotta try possessing a goth girl from NYC”. 

“I don’t think that’s the best idea, Lydia…” Barbara said, biting on her lip, it was all fun and games until someone got accidentally beheaded. “Let’s try with something a little more not alive”.

Lydia let her arms slump at her sides and opened her eyes, eyeing the couple. She was about to say something when the handle to the door started jiggling. Luckily it was locked. 

“Lydia! Who are you talking to?” her dad called out from the other side of the door. 

The Maitlands, even though they knew he couldn’t see them, went stiff out of habit. Strangers weren’t their strongest suit. And the situation could get a bit messy. 

Lydia marched up to the door, her black boots actually stomping down hard on the wooden floor, fists to her sides. She looked ready to rip out someone’s throat. Instead of almost tearing down the door from its hinges as it appeared her intention to be, she opened it and stood right in front of her dad. He looked surprised she had actually opened the door instead of just yelling at him from the other side. 

“What?” Lydia said, poison dropping from her mouth. 

“You forgot to take the dress Delia bought for you. I really hope you put it on for tomorrow’s dinner” he made as if to enter the room, dress in hand, but Lydia blocked his way. 

“I’ll take it from here, dad. No need to also ask where I went to just less than an hour ago” Lydia’s tone sounded like nails on a chalkboard, she snatched the dress from him and closed the door. Charles stuck his foot in the rim of the frame to prevent her from slamming it shut. 

“Who are you talking to?” he repeated the question, “Are you practicing your exercises as Delia told you to?”

“Yeah dad, that’s exactly what I am doing. I am talking to my friends, the ghosts I told you about, so we can go back to our real home” Lydia hissed out the words as she hit his foot to be able to shut the door. Charles’ foot gave out and she locked him out. 

“Lydia, I can explain what happened!” Charles called out, muffled by the thick oak of the door. 

“Don’t talk to me!” Lydia yelled back, locking the door and throwing away the golden dress. It landed at Adam’s feet. He bent down to pick it up, preventing it from getting wrinkled. The lace from the dress really resembled something Lydia would wear, but the color was too bright, too artificial. As if they wanted her to be a puppet. 

Adam then got an idea. 

Lydia was still too busy yelling at her dad to go away, so she didn’t see how Adam used the vanity chair to lay the dress on it. Barbara watched as he stretched as if to pitch baseballs at a game. 

“Honey, what are you even doing?” Barbara asked, now worried that maybe he had lost it for a second. 

“Remember that puppetry class I took a couple of years ago?” he said, cracking his knuckles and taking a stand like that of an orchestra conductor. 

Barbara nodded, another failed attempt of their many ones when it had come to look for new hobbies. Adam had actually tangled a couple of the puppets together, and he had been banned from the studio ever since. “What does that have to do with what you are doing?” She turned to look at Lydia as she finally returned to them. She was frowning and did not look as happy as she had been just moments ago. 

Barbara noticed how she always looked like she was holding back her breath, as if she couldn’t exhale relief. She couldn’t gather up the courage to ask her about it or about her dad; after all, all they wanted to do was find a way to get them out of the house. 

“Um...what’s he trying to do?” Lydia asked, tilting her head slightly. She didn’t know enough about ghosts to question Adam’s methods, but she also knew that even Adam didn’t know enough about ghosts to even have a methodology. 

“I’m moving my hands to try to mimic moving a puppet!” Adam said as he bounced up and down, his hands playing imaginary keys in the air and moving from side to side. He had his tongue sticking out between his teeth as he concentrated and tried to make the dress dance for them. But it just wouldn’t budge.

Barbara smiled sadly, she knew he was doing his best, but his arms were getting tired and it showed. She took a step forward to stop her husband from hurting himself when Lydia reached out for her hand. Barbara looked back, surprised, and saw how Lydia was staring wide-eyed at something on the bed.

Barbara followed her eyes and was met with the image of Mr. Hop putting on a show for them on top of the bed. Adam’s hands movements were actually working, the frail rabbit seemed to be controlled like a puppet, even if Adam didn’t see it. He pulled his arms up and the plush actually hopped out of the bed and into its owner’s arms. 

“I almost got it! I think I made the sleeves move!” Adam said proudly, but it had probably been just the dress sliding down the chair. 

“Babe! You were actually moving Lydia’s rabbit!” Barbara said as she embraced him, he looked confused and whipped his head to see Lydia holding onto the frail toy. He knitted his eyebrows together. 

“I did that?” 

Lydia was beaming, her childish excitement peeking out again. “Try it again! If you could make Mr. Hop dance then you can make that dress move as well!” 

“I want to try, too!” Barbara stepped in front of Adam, trying to copy his movements and remembering what they had learned in that puppet workshop. She squeaked when the dress dived out of the chair unto the floor, squirming slightly like a worm. After a couple of tries, she finally made it stay up, floating in the middle of the room. 

Adam was ecstatic, cheering for her. Lydia felt as if she could not believe her eyes. It felt like those games she played in her old house with her mom. The dress twirled and curtsied, moving around the three of them, Barbara made it seem so easy to be a ghost. 

“Yes! You guys got it! We can totally work with this for the party!” Lydia pulled the dress from the middle of the air and set it aside, she started searching for accessories in the various boxes that were in the room. 

“You think this plan is really going to work?” Adam wringed his hands together, anxious. “Your dad didn’t seem that convinced--”

“Trust me! If there is anything he hates with his guts right now is anything that he does not comprehend, I can tell you all about it” Lydia emerged triumphant with a pair of white socks and formal shoes for the occasion. The entire outfit did not match her at all, and her mischievous smile could not be masked by it either. 

“The dinner is until tomorrow night, you guys have a whole day to plan out how you want to do this, make me proud” Lydia’s smile was so cheerful that the Maitlands forgot for a moment that this was a plan to throw people out of the house and not a plan for a nice picnic. 

Anything to see that girl smile, Barbara thought. 

“Permission to do as we please, sir?” Adam joked, even standing still and saluting. 

“Permission granted, lieutenant Maitland” Lydia saluted back. 

She then stood between them and pulled them close, catching them by surprise. 

“You guys, we are going to have so much fun”.

**Author's Note:**

> I am but a simple fan, I see how you can imagine scenes in-between canon, I write a scene for that.


End file.
